Nick slowly drank his coffee.
It was so strange.
It tasted good, but Nick didn't want to drink it.
It felt bad to drink it.
After a couple of slow gulps, Nick decided to get this over with and swallowed the remainder in a single go.
That made him feel much better.
"Mind if I ask you a question?" Aria asked.
Nick raised an eyebrow.
Usually, Aria just asked questions without asking for permission.
The fact that she was asking for permission right now meant that Nick most likely wouldn't like the question.
"Sure," he answered evenly.
"How was life in the Dregs?" Aria asked.
Nick calmed down again.
"Pretty bad," Nick answered.
"Could you give me an example?" Aria asked.
Nick gave several more curt answers, but Aria kept asking more questions about the Dregs and Nick's life.
It took a while to coax Nick out of his shell, but eventually, he just started narrating his life story from when he lived in the Dregs.
Aria listened, and the more she heard about Nick's life, the worse she felt for him.
He had been just a child.
Of course, Nick also told Aria about the less savory things he had to do.
The time Nick had killed a woman on accident after she stole his money.
The time Nick accepted money from one of the gangs to assassinate someone from another gang.
The time Nick robbed one of the bigger stores in the Dregs.
The time Nick brought back a child that had run away from home.
That last one had probably been the worst one since the child seemed to become petrified in fear as soon as she saw Nick delivering her to her father.
Everyone had avoided that father since he seemed very unstable.
The gangs had also not been interested in working with him.
That was how the job came to Nick.
Nick had killed four people in total while living in the Dregs, but giving that child back to her father had been the one weighing the most on his conscience from his time back in the Dregs.
Eventually, Nick talked about the time he met Albert for the first time.
Naturally, Nick didn't tell Aria about his ability.
Whenever he talked about something related to it, he said that he couldn't go into detail.
Aria only knew two things about Nick's ability.
First, it gave him tremendous power under very specific circumstances.
Second, it was unusual enough for an Expert to become interested in it.
Eventually, Nick started talking about Wyntor.
Aria had only asked about the Dregs, but she also showed interest in the other parts of Nick's life.
When she heard about how they had caught the Dreamer, she was impressed.
Nick had shown a tremendous amount of willpower and resilience.
Nick's mood had been somewhat good up to this point.
Then, his narration slowed down, and he became somber.
Horua.
In the end, Nick decided to tell Aria about Horua.
From the get-go, Aria could see where this was going.
There was a good reason why no Manufacturer considered people below the age of 14 when they hired new Extractors.
Even more, 14-year-olds almost never made it through the selection process.
Meanwhile, Nick was throwing an eleven-year-old in front of a Specter.
The only reason why Nick managed to work with Specters at his young age back then was because he went through so much shit.
Both literally and figuratively.
An eleven-year-old couldn't possibly work with a Specter.
However, in Aria's mind, Wyntor actually held a greater amount of responsibility than Nick.
Nick had been uneducated.
Meanwhile, Wyntor had received the best education available in the city, and he had studied how to run a Manufacturer specifically.
There was no way that Wyntor didn't foresee what was about to happen.
And instead of telling Nick, he allowed Nick to go through with it.
Eventually, Aria didn't even need to ask any questions anymore since Nick was just narrating his life to her.
Naturally, there was no reason to keep the illegal things secret.
This stuff happened so many years ago, and Aria probably did worse things.
"Ardum Melfion," Aria repeated as Nick talked about Dark Dream's conflict with Cycle. "I think he works for us now."
"He does?" Nick asked.
Aria nodded. "I saw his file a couple of weeks ago. He's still a John. I think he doesn't have the willpower to go through with Zephosis."
Nick thought back to Ardum.
He had always wished to take his revenge on Ardum for his horrible behavior.
However, these things had happened so long ago.
In the end, Nick just didn't care enough to do anything.
At most, he would ask for a corruption check on him.
Ardum had also been quite young back then.
Maybe he had changed for the better.
Eventually, Nick talked about Vernon.
"Were you the one that killed him?" Aria asked.
Nick didn't see any point in hiding it and nodded.
Aria wasn't surprised.
"Why?" she asked.
Nick wanted to say that he only did so to protect himself since Vernon knew about his ability.
However, Nick realized that he was just lying to himself.
That wasn't truly the reason.
"I hated him," Nick said. "He constantly asked Markus to increase the blood tax. When Wyntor died, he had been much more interested in Dark Dream's shares than in finding Wyntor's killer. He raised a monster like Ardum. He constantly acted like a nice guy and then just stabs you in the back with a smile."
"I hate him."
Surprisingly, Aria laughed a little. "I can see where you are coming from. The only one of his kids that got anywhere was Samar, and she always acted rather curtly and coldly to her father. They worked together on the surface, but it wasn't difficult to see the animosity she felt towards her father."
"It was nice to work with Vernon since he was very reliable, but I always knew that I never wanted to advance our relationship past the stage of colleagues."
The two continued talking, and eventually, Nick reached the point where he got ambushed in his home.
Nick hesitated for a while and looked at Aria.
As Nick looked at her, he somehow felt… at ease.
He felt like he could tell her.
But, at the same time, he also became a bit nervous.
He was afraid of losing his only friend.
In the end, Nick sighed and told Aria.
About the Spartans…
And about the Crimson Sea.
Aria had to take a couple of deep breaths.
That sure was something.
She could also see how terrible Nick felt while talking about the Crimson Sea.
"And you're blaming yourself for that?" she asked.
"I was the one who freed it," Nick said.
"You freed an Adolescent, Nick," Aria said.
"As soon as it broke out, several Experts, Specialists, and even Markus gathered in front of the building."
"No one could have possibly predicted how things would turn out."
"Nobody knew that it could absorb Specters."
"Nobody knew there was a hole in the ground."
"Nobody knew that it would develop a terrifying fog ability that could kill thousands of people."
"Sure, all of this wouldn't have come to pass without your actions, but you were not the only one that failed."
"So many people failed on that day, and they all share part of the blame."
"Imagine an angry child that throws her father's bottle of alcohol against the wall. The bottle hits the wall in just such a manner that the entire house collapses, killing her entire family in the process."
"Would you say the child should be executed for murdering several people?" Aria asked.
Nick could see where Aria was coming from.
However, that didn't change his feelings.
Without his actions, all these people would still be alive.
Why would they care whether Nick wanted to kill them or not?
In the end, he was the reason for their deaths.
Yet, Nick still felt glad that Aria didn't hate him.
Eventually, Nick talked about Julian and everything beyond that.
The two of them had been talking for several hours by this point, and Aria had genuinely been interested in Nick's life.
After hearing so much about him, she also understood Nick much better.
His actions made much more sense now.
However, she could also see how Nick's actions were wrong.
Nick was essentially killing himself with his fanaticism to reach his goal.
Aria had lived for a long time, and she was very experienced.
She knew that even if Nick managed to save millions of people…
His guilt wouldn't reduce one bit.
In fact, it might even increase.
Nick was on a path to self-destruction.
However, Aria also knew that she couldn't just start talking about these things.
Nick's mindset had been formed over decades, and changing it would take a long time and many small conversations.
Aria wanted to help Nick.
Nick had done so much good for Crimson City.
'Although, that's not the real reason, huh?' Aria thought with a self-deprecating laugh.
Aria looked at Nick, who looked back at her.
'Might as well jump into the cold water,' Aria thought.
"Nick," Aria said.
"Yes?" Nick asked.
"What do you think about romance?"